Man and Superman: A Comedy and a PhilosophyShaw, Bernard
Philosophy
Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy
Shaw, Bernard
English drama; Man-woman relationships -- Drama
But I hear you asking me in alarm whether I have actually put all this
tub thumping into a Don Juan comedy. I have not. I have only made my Don
Juan a political pamphleteer, and given you his pamphlet in full by way
of appendix. You will find it at the end of the book. I am sorry to say
that it is a common practice with romancers to announce their hero as
a man of extraordinary genius, and to leave his works entirely to the
reader's imagination; so that at the end of the book you whisper to
yourself ruefully that but for the author's solemn preliminary assurance
you should hardly have given the gentleman credit for ordinary good
sense. You cannot accuse me of this pitiable barrenness, this feeble
evasion. I not only tell you that my hero wrote a revolutionists'
handbook: I give you the handbook at full length for your edification if
you care to read it. And in that handbook you will find the politics of
the sex question as I conceive Don Juan's descendant to understand them.
Not that I disclaim the fullest responsibility for his opinions and for
those of all my characters, pleasant and unpleasant. They are all right
from their several points of view; and their points of view are, for the
dramatic moment, mine also. This may puzzle the people who believe that
there is such a thing as an absolutely right point of view, usually
their own. It may seem to them that nobody who doubts this can be in a
state of grace. However that may be, it is certainly true that nobody
who agrees with them can possibly be a dramatist, or indeed anything
else that turns upon a knowledge of mankind. Hence it has been pointed
out that Shakespear had no conscience. Neither have I, in that sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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